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A monthly publication of AAUW, San Francisco, est. in 1886 www.aauwsf.org December 2012 President’s Message The San Francisco Branch of AAUW has a long and proud tradition of working for the empowerment of women and girls in the city. One of our goals this year is to continue this work with like organizations and connect in productive ways to move our missions forward. Recently, Deirdre Araujo, past President, represented our Branch on a panel that included SAGE, Alliance for Girls and the Family Services Agency to learn how to identify and support girls at risk of or involved in sexual exploitation. You can learn more about the Alliance for Girls organization by visiting their website: Holiday Luncheon http://www.alliance4girls.org/about-us/ Sunday, December 16, 2012, 11:00 am Mescolanza Restaurant, 2221 Clement Street. You should have received your invitation in the mail with details regarding menu choices. RSVP with check to AAUW-SF and entree choice to Nancy Shapiro 1683 42nd Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122 or call 415-731-2654. As 2012 winds down, we look forward to our Annual Holiday Luncheon, which will be held on December 16th at Mescolanza Restaurant. Hope to see you there. Member Survey Thank you to everyone who responded to the ‘Tis the season of giving thanks and thinking about Branch email survey. Your feedback will help us to friends and family who help us in life, through the grow as a branch and plan future programming. good times and the tough times. I want to take a Congratulations to Aysha Handley who has won a moment to thank my fellow AAUWSF board free membership for a friend to AAUW! members who volunteer their time for this great organization to ensure that it has a strong and vital future. I have learned much from board members over the years and I continue to tap into their vast Facebook knowledge and expertise as I settle into my role as Did you know the San Francisco Branch has a President. Thank you current and past board Facebook page? If you are a Facebook user, visit members, I appreciate everything that you do. our page, check out the regular postings of articles of interest and of course Like us! Happy Holidays everyone! http://www.facebook.com/pages/AAUW-San- Francisco/118625798168?v=wall&ref=nf Cathy Corcoran President AVANTI www.aauwsf.org December2012 Before the Bridge: Sight and Sound at the Golden Gate Board Meeting The final meeting of 2012 will be held on Wednesday, December 12th, 6:30 p.m., for potluck, with meeting at 7 p.m, at Marilyn's Leal's home, 4325 19th Street. All members are invited. RSVP Marilyn at 626-4110. International Book Group There is no meeting scheduled for December. The next meeting will be held on January 21, 2013. 103 Montgomery Street, next to the Main Parade Afternoon With Books Ground at the Presidio Friday, December 21, 1:30-3PM The newly rehabilitated Montgomery Street Hostess: Michelle Mammini, 2520 Greenwich St Barracks is the setting for a sensory experience of Book/Author: The Language of Flowers, the Golden Gate Strait. Come experience images by Vanessa Diffenbaugh and sounds of this area before the iconic bridge was RSVP: Michelle @ 346-9114 imagined. This exhibit surveys the dramatic geology, dangerous waters, ships, shipwrecks, lighthouses, art, and poetry related to the Golden Mystery/Adventure Gate Strait. It also explores the military installations that guarded it and are now part of the Golden Gate Thursday, December 20th (3rd Thurs) @ 6:30 National Recreation Area. Rarely seen images, PM maps, and paintings are complemented by sounds of Hostess: Andrea Laudate, 243 Missouri St. the ocean, foghorns, and sailors. Book/Author: Lost and Fondue, by Avery Aames Reviewer: Everyone Gallery I traces the history of the magnificent RSVP: Andrea @ 864-6789 Golden Gate Strait with tales of ships, lighthouses, foghorns, and shipwrecks. Gallery II explores two centuries of harbor defense, the impact of the Golden Gate Bridge on the Presidio, and the earliest Travel Group vision of a national park at the Gate. Visitors can also complete an interactive scavenger hunt and The Travel Group will be meeting at 11 AM on attend evening programs that complement the Saturday, December 15 to see this exhibit. exhibit. Please RSVP to: [email protected] Download the Exhibit Manual, written by Curator or [email protected] so we will be able Dr. Randolph Delehanty. To see selected video to look for you when you arrive. clips featured in the exhibit, visit the exhibit page. Elaine Butler and Adrienne Kristine 2 AVANTI www.aauwsf.org December2012 Avanti Articles Tenderloin Tessie Please remember to submit Avanti articles to Pat Camarena Corrine Sacks by the 25th of each month via email to: [email protected] Amply built blonde Tessie was the most renowned and classy of the upper Tenderloin bordello proprietors before the San Francisco Get the Avanti Faster earthquake. Back in the early 20th century, San If you’d like to receive the Avanti via Francisco was a place where women of opportunity email notice rather than US mail, could find immense financial freedom and wealth please tell thePlaying Membership Now VP, and then a printed copy will not be sent to catering to the desires of a diverse male population. Paula Campbell It was a different story for the oppressed female you. If you prefer, we will continue to print and mail the Avanti to you. population in the Barbary Coast area. An Irish Catholic born south of Market, Tessie operated an upscale three storied lavishly furnished house at 377 O'Farrell Street into the 1920s. A friend of the Playing Now mayor and a financial supporter of the police Paula Campbell department, buying hundreds of tickets to the annual policeman's ball, for more than a decade, Tessie was named the unofficial queen of the All Hail to the King – The Lion King that is, back Policeman's Ball. She led the Grand March each in San Francisco for a stunning run at the Orpheum year dancing the first dance with the mayor...Sunny theatre. This gorgeous treat for the eyes and ears Jim Rolph. A friend of the mayor and a financial has returned in all its glory. Julie Taymor’s supporter of the police, Tessie was named the astounding sets and costumes, combined with music unofficial queen of the Police Men's Ball. She was and lyrics by Elton John and Tim Rice make for a secretly married to a state political boss who quietly magical night of theatre. ran a number of pool halls and gambling dens. After a wildly pubic divorce trial she shot him after The curtain goes up on the African savannah, the encountering him with a lady on a public street. He sun rises slowly upstage (what a sight to see) and refused to press charges so Tessie was released. the griot/narrator Rafiki, the only human, non- After 1917, most of the brothels were shut down animal character, sung, chanted, and danced by after a wave of reform. Tessie retired taking with Buyi Zama of Durban, South Africa, enters as a her her enormous antique Napolean bed. She had parade of animals dance down the aisles from the used her wealth to purchase antiques many from the back of the theatre and take their places on the Spreckel's estate. Tessie's three story townhouse at stage. The show’s identifying theme song, The 535 Powell Street stands today as the last building Circle of Life, fills the theatre – and the show near Union Square that began life as mansion. comes to heartwarming, riotous, colorful life. Worn but ornate, it currently houses an art gallery. A few years ago, their annual fundraiser celebrated The cast is young and enthusiastic, the dancing the life and times of Tessie...Teresa Susan Donahue energetic and forceful. But what makes the show Wall. outstanding are the costumes. Each lead animal has www.rootsweb.com its own mask and headpiece, bringing each to life as www.runningwithlonglegs.blogspot.com an individual character. Other animals have www.trivia-library.com attached limbs, jointed legs, and heads that move realistically as the actor’s head moves. I was especially taken with the jaguar, whose head, several inches in front of the actor’s head, was 3 AVANTI www.aauwsf.org December2012 attached to the actor’s by cords in such a way that it moved exactly as the actor’s head moved – cocked December Birthdays head, chin up, side to side, actually looking over its shoulder, and so on. Other incredible effects are the wheel machines of leaping gazelles, the flying Rene Golanty-Koel December 8 birds, the overwhelming stampede of the Annie Bailey December 15 wildebeests, and many more. Angie Durso December 23 The show is famous for Taymor’s use of puppetry as well as her use of masks. Many of the animals are puppets – all sorts of puppets -- from East Asian Birthday Not Announced? shadow puppets to the realistic three quarter life If your birthday is not there and you’d like to size ones of Japan’s Bunraku. What stuns me is the have it included (or corrected), contact the realism of it all. The African savannah is alive with Membership VP. overwhelming sounds and sights. Even the grass grows before our very eyes. The simple, rather corny plot of the boy Prince, deceived by his evil uncle and forced to leave the Pride, only to return Public Policy Notes years later and find it wrecked, the members starving and under attack, and who then resumes his rightful place and becomes the King, is saved from SF Commission on the Status of Women being utter treacle by the fabulous music and Instead of its regular November meeting the talented actors, and by the use of two characters Commission held a planning retreat (which I was who provide comic relief, the meerkat Timon (Nick not able to attend).